The State Budget begins in the House of Representatives. Which is the body charged with the so-called, power of the purse. The House Ways and Means committee begins the process by formulating revenue estimates for the coming budget cycle. Using the available economic and tax data, they formulate generally accurate estimates of the revenue the State will generate in the next cycle. Those numbers are then submitted to the full House, which approves or denies the estimates. If approved, the House finance committee begins it’s work to budget the State within the revenue estimates approved by the full House. All the Departments, Courts, and other entities funded by the State budget, come before the three divisions of the Finance committee with the budgets that they have proposed for their own departments in the next budget cycle. The three divisions of finance are division III, which handles the health and human services side of the budget, division II which handles the education side of the budget, and division I which handles the rest of the nearly fifty different departments funded by the State. 

In recent decades the Governor has taken it upon themselves to craft their own revenue estimates, to help form their own ‘budget’. Budget is in quotes because it is truly a budget request made to the House of Representatives. The Governor doesn’t budget, the House does. Governor Sununu’s budget request this year appropriated 15.57 billion dollars. The budget that passed the House finance committee allocated 15.76 billion dollars, and ultimately the House passed a 15.80 billion dollar State budget for the next  fiscal year. This would be around a 710 million dollar increase in State spending from the last State budget. 

The House passed the budget after a tense day on the floor. Most Representatives went into the day believing that the State budget would fail on at least one vote, if not entirely. The Democrats on the Finance committee voted against HB1 and HB2 being recommended for an Ought to Pass vote. Bringing both bills to the floor with a 14-11 margin, Peter was the only Democrat on the committee who supported the budget bills. He can speak for himself but I will say that he is the only Democratic Chairman of a committee this session. He Chairs the first division of the Finance committee. His committee handled the issues of the retirement system, and the pay for all the State employees. He was able to secure big wins for the retirement benefits of our group II employees, police, fire, and correctional officers. He was also able to secure a 10% pay raise for our State employees. Something the SEIU public employees union has been begging the legislature for. He voted for the budget to advance in the process, to protect the work he was able to do for the benefit of the people of the State of New Hampshire. This is the unappealing, but necessary work to make the sausage. 

The Budget as passed by the Finance committee did not represent the cordial, non partisan atmosphere that we were told by the majority that we would get in this biennium. The Republicans on the committee did a lot within the hundreds of pages of the State budget. They proposed an 1800% increase in funds to the Education Freedom Account program, raising the amount allocated from 3.3 million to 60 million dollars. Funding the expanded eligibility which could be found in HB2. The committees work on the budget made major changes to the education fund within the budget, moving the funds that go to building aid and special education from the education fund to the general fund. This results in a harder time for schools seeking these funds from the State, because they will no longer be specifically kept from being used to fund other general fund spending efforts. The House budget, despite spending more in total than the Governor had proposed, rejected 75 million dollars for school building aid. Something desperately needed by districts throughout the State attempting to modernize their buildings for the safety of the students, teachers, and all workers within. They increased the public education adequacy funding, but did so in a way that exacerbates the formula which leaves property poor communities taking most of the tax burden with less of the services, while property wealthy communities get off on the tax burden and receive better services. This budget increased the funding for many of the wealthy communities, while the property poor towns will see no change in this budget. Resulting in continued exponential growth of the tax burden on the citizens of those poor towns. All this while there are 96 million dollars of surplus funds which could be used to solve these issues in a non partisan way. Providing tax relief to our citizens across the board, and fully funding all the schools in our State, not just those in wealthy communities. 

The House put a two year sunset on the Medicaid Expansion program in the State. Which harms the State’s ability to administer the program immediately if passed. Not to mention threatening the healthcare of thousands of our citizens who without this program would not have care when they need it. The program has gaps, and a whole host of other issues. The solution to those problems is not to get rid of it, but to repair it where needed so that we can continue to provide the best care to our citizens that they need. When you look at the data there is no doubt that this is a cost saving program. Insured individuals cost less than uninsured people when they get care. The more uninsured people who seek care, the more expensive it is for the individual, the system, and the State. 

This was a budget that was not going to work for me. The people would be far worse off if it were to pass. I was confident going into the sixth that I would not be supporting the budget on the floor. The Democratic leadership was meeting with the Speaker and Finance chair in the days between the Finance committees vote and the floor vote on the budget. Negotiating to see if a compromise budget could be crafted. 

We met as a full caucus the morning prior to our session in the ‘minority caucus room’ aka the cafeteria with the seating adjusted by the State House employees the night prior. The Democratic Leader of the House, Matt Wilhelm, unveiled the bi-partisan agreement he had crafted with Republican Majority Leader Jason Osborne and Speaker Packard. The package included 15 million dollars back to the affordable housing fund to address the housing prices in the State. Brought the funding for the Education Freedom Account program from 60 million dollars to 40 million dollars. Adjusted the formula for education funding so that poor towns wouldn’t be as worse off as they’d be in the House Finance’s budget. Made new healthcare investments of 10 million to community resource centers and the system of care. It also invested 40 million dollars for medicaid provider rates.

There is no doubt that is an improvement to what the Finance committee passed, but in my eyes it was putting more bread on a less than desirable defecate sandwich. We had over forty five floor amendments proposed to the budget by a variety of members on all sides.

We processed all the amendments, including the major bipartisan one, which passed on a vote of 326-63. With a group of Republicans and right leaning independent members voting against the compromise. All the Democrats voted for it, along with the rest of the Republican caucus. It was then time to vote on HB2, as amended, and the Speaker asked if the House was ready for the question. That usually prompts a member to call for either a division or roll call vote but nobody said a word. He paused for a moment before continuing on, “all those in favor say aye.”, “…opposed nay.” I yelled nay as a protest to the budget, as did many others. I voted for the compromise to ensure we could claw back the little we could but I was never going to support the final product in the end. The Speaker, and everyone in the chamber who had seen more than one budget cycle before was stunned. The House passed it’s budget by a voice vote. Everyone was joyous by the prospect, but I found it more indicative of the growing willingness of the body as a whole to shirk it’s responsibility to budget to a select group of the membership. 

In the end, the budget passed. It is now onto the Senate Finance committee where they will mirror the same process done in the House. Crafting and passing their own budget, to ultimately come to an agreement with the House and pass it onto the Governor. The Senate budget should arrive back to us for committee of conference sometime in June.